Actions

Kroger's next battleground: China

Kroger is making another big push into online groceries, this time by opening a digital business in China.

America's largest grocery chain said Tuesday that it will start selling its Simple Truth-brand products on Alibaba's Tmall Global site.

By partnering with Alibaba, Kroger can battle its biggest rivals on two fronts: It will expand its fledgling online business and will venture abroad for the first time. Tmall is internet giantAlibaba's e-commerce platform for foreign brands.

"E-commerce enables Kroger to quickly scale to reach new customers and markets where we don't operate physical stores, starting with China," Yael Cosset, Kroger's chief digital officer, said in a statement.

Simple Truth is Kroger's line of natural and organic goods. The brand reached $2 billion in sales earlier this year, the company said.

It's the latest attempt by Kroger to compete with Amazon and Walmart as online shopping for groceries becomes increasingly popular.

That partnership could get some new muscle from Silicon Valley. Google bought a $550 million stake
in JD.com in June. The two tech firms plan to join forces to sell goods online across Southeast Asia, the United States and Europe. Google still can't offer its main services in China.